REVEALED BY A FLASH OF LIGHTNING. BY THOMAS W. LLOYD. THE truth of the familiar saying, that "murder will out," is well illustrated by a case that was tried in Sullivan county, Pennsylvania, nearly fifty years ago, and which is absolutely unique in the annals of crime. At the time referred to, there lived in Elkland township, Sullivan county, a German cobbler and his young and pretty wife. The husband's name was John Vitengruber and he was of a rather shiftless nature and strongly addicted to drink. They had one child, a boy about three years of age. The wife was about fifteen years younger than her husband, and they frequently quarreled. Some time after coming to Sullivan county they were visited by a young carpenter named John Ramm. Having come from the same section in Germany in which the Vitengrubers had lived, Ramm was permitted to make his home with them. But soon after his arrival the quarrels between husband and wife became more frequent and bitter, and strange stories began to be whispered about concerning Ramm, the boarder. One Sunday Vitengruber suddenly disap peared. His wife and Ramm said he had gone over into an adjoining county to work at his trade. This story was believed, until about a month afterward, when a neighbor noticed that Ramm was not only wearing Vitengruber's clothing, but that he also car ried his watch. This led to the arrest of Ramm and Mrs. Vitengruber, but there was nothing to show that their story was untrue, and they were discharged. For some time afterward the pair con tinued to live in the log hut in the woods, and then something startling occurred. It was four months after the disappearance of Viten gruber that Joseph McCarthy was traveling,
one night, through the woods, near the hut where Mrs. Vitengruber lived with her par amour. There was a terrible storm in prog ress, and trees and limbs were being blown in every direction. A zigzag path led through the woods, directly past the little log house, and it was while wandering about in search of this path that McCarthy saw something that made his hair raise. The rain was falling in torrents. Suddenly McCarthy caught a sickening odor that seemed to come from an overturned hemlock tree. As he stood there, a vivid flash of lightning lit up the forest and directly in front of him, uncovered by the" uptorn roots of the overturned tree, Mc Carthy beheld the decomposed remains of a human body. It was just for an instant that McCarthy was able to see it, but that instant was enough to frighten him so badly that he ran blindly through the woods, coming out into a clearing near his own home. Next morning, in company with a neigh bor, McCarthy returned to the fallen tree, but the body was gone. In a shallow furrow, however, the imprint remained, and a close inspection revealed startling evidences of crime. The men found the nails of a human being, together with a bunch of hair and caps of hard skin that had evidently covered hu man heels. The hair was exactly the same color as the hair of Vitengruber. An effort had been made by somebody, that very morn ing, to chop off the trunk of the fallen tree, so that the upturned roots would fall back over the open grave, but this effort had been unsuccessful. The men examined the chips and, from their peculiar shape, determined that they had been jnadc by Ramm, who was an experienced axman. The arrest of Ramm and Mrs. Vitengruber followed and their trial came up at the next
